My Twin

Men Beware: This entry deals with my female parts and the things that can go wrong with them.

On Monday I had surgery and it was no fun.

Well, riding the morphine dragon was a little fun, but overall getting your belly button cut open is just not a good time. There are three small incisions including the one on my belly button, but damn does it hurt!

I was having some pelvic pain on my right side a few months ago. My doctor recommended that I go ahead and come in for am ultrasound.

I've never had a child, but I've seen plenty of ultrasounds on ER so I knew what to expect. If you've never had a pelvic ultrasound, know that you have to have a full bladder in order for them to get a good picture. I'm adding that in because ER never told me that and neither did my doctor. Consequently, my visit was made longer by the fact that I had to fill my bladder first. I finally get to the point where I'm ready to burst and the technician agrees with me that I'm ready.

There is no talking during an ultrasound. The technician just takes pictures while you lay there wondering why you're in pain. The tech finally speaks to me and says, "Okay, now I need you to go in the bathroom, empty your bladder and remove your clothes below the waist."

Me, "Uhm . . okay."

I go in the bathroom, do as I'm told and when I come out the technician says to me, "Okay, I need you to lay on the bed again."

I lay on the bed and I realize she's taken out a "wand" and is covering it with a condom and lubing it up with KY.

I didn't even know her name.

It turns out when they spot something on the ultrasound they have to then go in with what I've affectionately called the "dildo cam." That ultrasound detected a fibroid growing on the outside of my uterus . . . on the left side of my pelvis. Weird because I came in for pain on the right side.

My doctor and I decided to take the wait and see approach so I returned in six months and it had doubled in size. When they took the fibroid out it was the same size as my uterus: about the size of a large chicken egg.

My brother has been keeping my spirits up by calling this thing "my twin." I know that sounds gross, but it's actually a reference to My Big Fat Greek Wedding. He kept teasing me that if it was a dermoid cyst with teeth and hair he wanted me to bring it home in a jar so that he could keep it. My cyst's lore eventually grew to include painted finger nails.

My cyst did not have any of those things, but weirdly when I told my cousin D about it post-surgery he asked me, "They let you keep it?" My brother and D don't chat it up on a regular basis so I know they come up with this independently of each other. My family is crazy.

I was lucky with this whole fibroid thing. It was attached by a stalk and that meant they could take it out by making three small incisions. They had to cut the fibroid up in small pieces to take it out (thus rendering impossible for me to give it to my brother as one large mass in a mason jar), but they got all of it.

The ultrasounds I had couldn't detect what was causing my original complaint: pain on the lower right side.

The laparoscopy done on Monday showed that I've got endometriosis on my bladder as well as across both of my fallopian tubes. I've never tried to get pregnant, but my doctor is fairly sure that the endometriosis on my fallopian tubes would have made that pretty difficult.

The fact that it's on my bladder was interesting though because I kept having pain while I urinated (at times excruciating pain) and my former GP kept testing me for UTIs that came up negative. He eventually came to the conclusion that this pain was in my head and that maybe if I lost a little weight and exercised I would feel better. I was angry about it then, but now I'm furious. I hate that he made me feel crazy and that maybe I was imagining this pain.

I no longer go to that doctor.

I'm still a little freaked out that I had something like that growing inside of me, but I'm, glad it's out and I'm glad I have some answers.

My doctor is optimistic that it's benign, but we'll know for sure next week.

I'm not scared because at this point I'm leaving it in God's hands.

What else can I do?